Hosting Tier Guide
for AI-Built Sites

Unlimited bandwidth on the free tier is unmatched. Every other platform caps you at ~100GB. If your landing page goes viral, Cloudflare won't pause your site. Global CDN serves from 300+ cities. Best for: landing pages, marketing sites, dashboards.

Since Sept 2025, Netlify uses credit-based pricing. 300 credits/month = ~15GB bandwidth. Each deploy costs 15 credits. Hit the cap and all sites pause until next month. Drag-and-drop deploy is still the fastest way to get AI-built HTML online. Forms are now free (April 2026).

Simplest mental model: push to a repo, get a website. 100GB soft limit is generous. Best for personal portfolios, documentation, simple landing pages. Requires Git comfort.

Best-in-class developer experience with instant rollbacks and preview deploys. However, the Hobby plan is non-commercial only — if your site makes money, you need Pro. Great for React/Next.js dashboards.

Literally surge ./dist and you're live. No dashboard, no config. Best for quick prototypes and sharing demos. Not ideal for production sites.

Very restrictive free tier (1GB bandwidth, 3 apps). Better as an entry point to DigitalOcean's broader ecosystem than a standalone hosting solution.

Good "grow into it" platform. Free tier extends beyond static sites to web services. Custom domain limit of 2 is restrictive for multiple sites.

The natural upgrade from Netlify free. Same workflow — drag-and-drop, CLI, Git — with enough credits to run multiple sites. The ecosystem (forms, functions, identity, analytics) is the most complete at this price point.

Unlocks commercial use and 1TB bandwidth. Per-user pricing adds up for teams — solo entrepreneurs get great value, but a 5-person team pays $100/month. Best Next.js platform.

Cloudflare Pages itself stays free at every tier. The $20/month Pro plan adds WAF, image optimization, and enhanced analytics to your domain. Only needed if you want the security/performance layer.

Real value is when you need more than static hosting — databases, managed Kubernetes, and droplets in the same ecosystem. Simple pricing for static sites.

No per-seat fees — unlimited team members at $25 flat. Includes SOC 2 and ISO compliance reports. Good for teams that need compliance and multiple services.

Cloudflare's network runs in 300+ cities worldwide. At scale, the edge network advantage compounds. Pages bandwidth stays unlimited. You're paying for enterprise security, SLA, and support. For a business doing real revenue, $200/month is a no-brainer.

Pay-as-you-go means small sites stay free permanently. The real value is AWS ecosystem integration — Cognito, DynamoDB, Lambda. Steeper learning curve than alternatives. Not recommended for simple static sites unless you're already in AWS.

Large teams requiring compliance, SLAs, and dedicated support. Same great Netlify workflow with enterprise-grade guarantees.

Enterprise-scale Next.js/React hosting with advanced security, custom limits, and dedicated support.

Healthcare and fintech teams needing HIPAA compliance, enterprise SSO, SCIM, and advanced role-based access control.